The present invention relates to railroad car brake cylinder piston travel indicators and particularly to the mounting arrangement for affixing such an indicator to the brake cylinder piston assembly.
Freight trains typically undergo a pre-departure terminal test in which the air brake equipment of each car is inspected prior to the train being cleared to proceed from the train make-up yard. This inspection requires a trainman to "walk the train" visually checking each car's brake equipment. During this inspection, the extended and retracted condition of the brake cylinder piston rod is noted as an indication of the car's brakes being operative. Moreover, the degree of piston rod extension beyond a nominal range provides an indication of such brake system malfunctions as an improperly or non-operative slack adjuster device, for example.
In the case of traditional style freight cars, the brake rigging arrangement is such that the brake cylinder piston rod can be readily viewed by a trainman "walking the train". On specialty type cars, however, their design often requires placement of the brake cylinder device in a location that is obstructed from view. It thus becomes burdensome to monitor the applied and release condition of the brake cylinder piston rod and consequently more time consuming to complete the terminal test, particularly on trains having a relatively high number of these specialty type cars.